1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a method and a system for the production of semi-finished copper products as well as to a method and an apparatus for application of a wash or coating to an ingot mold.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the case of methods and systems for the production of semi-finished copper products, it is known to first melt copper and cast it to produce copper anodes, in one casting procedure, within multiple ingot molds, subsequently to form copper cathodes by electrolysis, using at least one of the copper anodes, and then to process these copper cathodes further to produce semi-finished copper products. Furthermore for this purpose, methods and apparatuses for applying a wash (coating) to an ingot mold or to the ingot molds are also provided. Washes are coating substances that are applied to the ingot molds to make the generally porous ingot mold surface smooth before the casting process. In this connection, the technical teaching known from EP 1 103 325 A1 concerns itself with cleaning adhering residues of a wash encrustation from cast copper anodes.
The use of electrolysis, in particular, is very energy-intensive. Electrolysis therefore has a decisive influence on efficiency, in other words on the ratio of the amount of semi-finished copper products produced to the amount of energy required for this purpose.